One of the many great things about Scandal (aside from the steamy oval office hookups) is its willingness to delve into controversial storylines. Season 1 gave us a shooting scare -- which left the President hospitalized and in critical condition -- while Season 2 is already dabbling with an equally scandalous topic in this week's episode, "Mrs. Smith Goes To Washington," involving a White House bomb threat that puts our favorite fixer's life in direct danger.

Meanwhile, Fitz and Mellie finally have an honest heart-to-heart talk where they admit their true feelings for each other, which are...erm...complicated to say the least. Let's dig in!

'Cause You've Had a Bad Day

Okay, so Olivia's having a pretty rough day. She's got what's sure to be a pretty messed up Jake Ballard asleep in her bed after months of being left alone in a deep, dark hole; Huck is barely speaking to her after learning that she made a deal with her father to leave him alone; and Pope & Associates finally gets a new client...who just so happens to be hell-bent on extracting revenge for her son.

Meet Mary -- her son was killed by the FBI, claiming that he was a terrorist, however, his file is deemed as classified and she's desperate for some answers. So she hires Pope & Associates to help uncover the truth, but doesn't go into detail. She says she has a meeting to go to at the Capital, but she'll be in touch.

However, thanks to Quinn (aka Baby Huck) doing some digging, they realize that there's more to this story than meets the eye. Mary cleared out her bank account to pay for their services, which seems oddly suspicious, so Olivia heads over to the Capital to investigate. She sees a bunch of people running out of a room, so naturally, she heads in there, where she finds Mary with a room full of people...and a bomb strapped to her chest.

Operation Remington To Be Continued

But this isn't the only situation going on in the White House that day. A man somehow manages to sneak into the building and starts running toward the Oval Office, demanding to speak to the President about Operation Remington (something we'd all like to know a little more about). The secret service takes him down, but Cyrus tells them to let him go. He gives Rowan a call, saying that they have a Remington problem that he needs to deal with.

Rowan meets up with the guy at an old cabin out in the middle of nowhere and gives him another pay-off, reminding him that they had a deal. But this man wants nothing more to do with the deal. He wants to speak to the President about Remington ASAP. Rowan assures the man that he can make it happen; he just needs time. He goes to leave the guy's place and who should be outside waiting for him, but Huck, who's been tailing him all day. Oh, and look, he has a gun.

He explains to Liv later on that he didn't end up killing him. He wanted to -- as a way to finally get some answers and peace for all the hell Rowan has put him through. But even after all this time, Rowan still has control over him. He told Huck that there was someone inside that needed taking care of, if you catch my drift, and he couldn't help but obey. Huck killed the mysterious Remington man, making it look like a suicide, so now we'll have to wait until God knows how long to finally figure out what that operation was all about. (I want to knooooow!) Also, Huck breaking down and crying into Olivia's arms was just plain heartbreaking. Someone get this guy a new family to innocently stalk.

Tick, Tick, Boom!

Back at the Capital, Mary explains to Olivia how she believes that her son is an innocent man and the government is simply trying to cover up a mistake. She understands that Liv is known for trusting her gut, so she's hoping it will help her get to the bottom of all this. Liv becomes the main point of contact for the negotiator and reveals Mary's demand: she wants her son's file declassified and brought to her or else she'll blow everyone sky-high. As a sign of good faith, she agrees to let six of the hostages go, leaving only Liv, the Senator, and herself in the room.

Liv gets her team to start digging into the son's background, but the swat team has another idea in mind. They plan on taking the first shot they can get on Mary, hoping that she won't trigger the bomb in the process. And since Fitz doesn't yet know that his lady-love is in there with the bomb, he agrees to the plan. Of course, Liv eventually catches wind of the plan and moves Mary away from the window before they can get a clean shot. Fitz sees Liv standing in front of the window and immediately orders everyone to stand down.

Quinn's not having any luck hacking into the FBI files since she's not quite at Huck-level status yet, however, an FBI agent asks to speak with Harrison, who's been hovering around the negotiator station outside the White House, trying to get some answers. She shows him video evidence of Mary's son, Chris, acting as a terrorist recruiter. He relays the news to Liv, but has Abby ask David Rosen to do some digging into the FBI agent that showed him the footage. As it turns out, the woman was merely impersonating the FBI, but there's no record of her in the system. Clearly something is not right.

After David does a little digging, he notices that all of the people involved in the raid that ended with Chris' death all got promotions afterward, which could either be seen as a reward for killing a terrorist or a collective bribe for maintaining silence about the details surrounding that day. He threatens to take the information public unless Cyrus shows him the file. Shortly afterward, Fitz gets on the phone with Liv and discloses the truth concerning Chris' file: he wasn't a terrorist. He was a CIA agent who was working undercover as an Al Qaeda recruiter. This allowed him to be able to help 57 men infiltrate into the terrorist group to gain more information. He was an American hero and his death was a tragic mistake.

However, Liv can't tell Mary any of this since 57 lives hang in the balance. If Chris' true allegiance was known to the terrorists, all of the men he recruited would be found out and killed. Liv doesn't want to, but she lies, telling Mary her son was in fact a terrorist, which leads to her shoving them out of the room and setting the bomb off on herself.

Honesty is the Worst Best Policy

Later that evening, Fitz finds a drunken Mellie sitting in a dark room, drinking some celebratory hooch (a term I hope all First Ladies use). He joins her for a moment and reveals that he's surprised to see her celebrating since he thought she would've wanted to see Liv die by that bomb. But that is Mellie's worst nightmare -- for Olivia Pope to die trying to save the lives of others. The worship Fitz would feel for her would be just unbearable. No, she'd much rather have Liv alive because as long as she's around, she's Fitz's Achilles heal. A string Mellie can pull to make her puppet husband dance. Cheers!

Meanwhile, Liv heads back to her apartment, shaken by the events of the day and the realization of how deep her father has his hooks in people...like Huck. She asks Jake how he was able to get out of that hole because there must be a reason. He always has a reason. Jake says he has no idea why he was let out, but claims it was the thought of Olivia that kept him going (aww!). She assures Jake that her father will find a way to use him against her. When it comes to her father, there's never a way out.

So what did you think of tonight's episode of Scandal? Did you think Huck had killed Olivia's father? Are you desperate to get to the bottom of Operation Remington? Are you starting to become Team Jake over Team Fitz? Take our poll below and feel free to sound off on your thoughts and predictions in the comments below!